Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia/Sir Antonio Pappano

As the first Italian orchestra to devote itself in its entirety to symphonic music, it’s only apt that the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia play two works that defied convention at time of writing. Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto is playful in its lightest moments and brooding in its darkest. 20 years later, Sibelius’s vivid First Symphony firmly established the composer as a household name.

And opening with Dukas’s charming The Sorcerer's Apprentice, embedded into pop culture through Disney’s Fantasia, is surely the perfect opening for the orchestra to land back on its London feet. ‘It became clear very quickly that anything Pappano wanted from his orchestra, it delivered with breathtaking responsiveness’ said Classical Source when the orchestra last visited us – we have no doubt it will be the same this time around.